I'm looking to retire my old UMAX SCSI scanner at work and replace it with a USB model, around the same time as I upgrade the machine from SuSE 8.2 to SuSE 9.2.

It mostly gets used for scanning documents using Kooka for emailing to head office, so I don't need ultra-high resolution (I normally scan documents at 150dpi, but occasionally go to 300dpi for pictures). The machine only has USB 1.0 ports, so I don't need a USB2 device (unless it's backwards compatible). It must, however, be a flatbed with the sort of hinges that allow you to put a thick document on the scanner bed.

I would prefer a USB scanner as the SCSI card I have is an Adaptec 2920; not the most reliable of cards, and communication with the UMAX (an old Vista S6E) is often lost mid-scan.

Anyone care to recommend a suitable scanner ?

I'm happy to pick one up from ebay (new or second-hand), I just want some ideas as to which one to look out for.

That's easy: Canon LiDE20 (current - 600x600) or LiDE30 (obselete - 1200x1200). Do NOT get LiDE35 or any others, however, they do not work in Linux. The 20 and 30 work right out of the box with no fiddling as long as you have Sane installed, with 100% functionality.

Many thanks - am now watching a couple on ebay. The LiDE20 looks like it will do just fine for what I want, and it's an added bonus that it will take power from the USB port - one less piece of spaghetti under my desk

I'm afraid I have to say that I will not use any Canon hardware until they start to support Linux. I have one of the Canon scanners that doesn't work under Linux - purchased pre-Linux days before anybody says why didn't you check for compatibility. I have a LiDE50 and am having to wait for the guy working on it at SANE to write a driver. I have got onto Canon but they do not want to know... So, I can only urge Linux users to boycott Canon products or those of any other manufacturer who does not support Linux. It's the only way they will sit up and realise that there is a world outside of Microsoft and Apple.

Well, I picked up a second-hand LiDE20. It didn't work at anything other than 75dpi under SuSE 8.2, but works perfectly under 9.2...
it's a bit noisy, but does exactly what I want using far less desk space than the old UMAX

I am disappointed to hear of Canon's attitude to Linux, though... they certainly won't be top of my list for any new kit I buy.

Anybody interested in a UMAX Vista S6-E ? I have the original UMAX ISA SCSI card to go with it, but that gets very unreliable in any machine with a processor faster than about 300MHz.

Ah, that's it, it works under SANE. My point is that Canon are not bothering to write their own drivers for Linux. They are happy to let volunteers do it in the SANE project. Now, I don't know whether they allow information out about the chipsets they use in their hardware but I suspect not.

Shame, because as I have truthfully told Canon UK, IMHO their scanners are excellent pieces of kit.

9.2 is working fine for everything I want at the moment, thanks... it was 8.2 which wasn't handling the LiDE20 properly.
I usually buy the ".2" releases of SuSE as a) that gives a decent gap between upgrades and b) they seem to be the most stable (remember all the gripes about 8.1 ?:?)
I buy the boxed sets because I like to have some treeware to refer to if things aren't working right, and it puts a small amount back into the community (I pay SuSE, they keep paying people to do more development). And unlike that other OS, I can install my purchase on multiple machines, so it works out at a relatively small cost per machine.

My next general update will be 10.2, although I'd like to try Gentoo on one machine in the meantime... if only there were another 24 hours in each day !

HP are just as bad, finding out which models work with Linux is a lottery.
Suse 9.3 32 and 64 bit are available as a dvd iso, which is excellent, I agree with you about the boxed sets, Suse manuals have usually been good.
I also like to put money back in, which is why I subscribed to The Mandrake club for a couple of years, until I moved back to Suse with 9.1 personal.
I will probably buy 10, and we are evaluating SES at the moment for work.
But I like the fact that I can download incremental upgrades easily, and 9.3 fixed a lot of 9.2 problems.

The sig between the asterisks is so cool that only REALLY COOL people can even see it!

I'd dispute the HP thing - I use HP Printers, not because of the cheapness of the ink (note sarcasm), but because they actively support Linux driver development. It is tricky though - if the community create drivers for kit, then the manufacturers see no need to, but on the other hand, if no-one creates drivers the community's stuffed. It's a fine line to tread, and I don't know the answer. One way might be to ensure that you buy kit from companies that support Linux, then write to their competitors, telling them what you've bought and why. A lost sale feels more harmful to them than no sale.

I admit that the printers are (usually) fine, but that`s because they`re common enough to be seen as a "standard" (e.g. PCL is a very common Printer language that many other non-HP printers support, and many of the HP laserjets support Postscript too).
In fact we have often used HP drivers for Ricoh MFPs, when there wasn't a native driver available (e.g. for Citrix )

The problem is with the scanners, I made the mistake of buying a HP scanner and then found it's chipset was not supported for Linux.
To be honest, it isn't HP's fault directly, they buy scanner hardware from a range of manufacturers.

The sig between the asterisks is so cool that only REALLY COOL people can even see it!

When it comes to scanners, the difference between Canon and other scanner makers that don't do Linux, is that Canon are outspoken about it but others just keep quiet.

The Canon LiDE 20 is now obsolete, and is replaced by the LiDE 25. I have no idea whether this will work in Linux or not.

The good news from the sane-project site is that there is a strong possibility that the LiDE 35, 40 and 50 drivers will be ready soon.

One of the reasons I recommended the LiDE20 in this thread, is that I have used other "compatible" scanners, but the Linux drivers have not been all that good. In many cases, the colours were flat, and there are artefacts in the scan, whereas the LiDE20 driver was actually better in Linux than Windoze!